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The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has a nice uptick in chatter this weekend starting around Saturday but staying strong throughout Sunday on ranking changes and traffic changes.
It looks like the changes started later Friday when member, backdraft7, said:
Looks like somebody tripped on the network cable on our server again. NO traffic for long periods today. 20 and 30 minute periods of absolutely NOTHING! Well, at least it can't get any worse that zero? Can it? Come on what gives? I'm still in the serps, but ZERO? Did every on the planet die?
Several SEOs and webmasters also noticed major changes afterwards.
Another SEO added, "Traffic STOPPED completely 30 minutes or so ago. WOW is all I can say..."
Like all ranking fluctuations discussed in these threads, it doesn't mean there was a global update or anything. It can be site specific or even a bug with the site or Google.
One other Webmaster added:
We saw similar patterns yesterday. Not "zero" traffic, but huge drops in traffic at times during the day. Mostly in the afternoon as the morning started off normal (Central time zone). I kept checking the news to see if some disaster had struck that was taking everyone's attention away because like you, our SERPS hadn't changed so it made no sense.
Honestly, I don't think this will be a major update like anything Penguin or Panda related. But I'll stay on top of it.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Yakezie
04/08/2013 01:04 pm
How does a big site get no traffic? Or is the site a small niche site?
Alistair Lattimore
04/08/2013 01:21 pm
Something is happening. Both http://mozcast.com & http://algoroo.com are showing some serious movement.
Barry Schwartz
04/08/2013 01:22 pm
Mozcast does not.
Rahul Mishra
04/08/2013 02:22 pm
I also have not seen any changes yet. Is it really any updated..???
seorozum
04/08/2013 02:30 pm
In Ukraine we have SERP like shit, it's disappoint .....
Anti-SEO
04/08/2013 02:37 pm
LOL)) This guy (backdraft7) is saying same thing over and over since the first Panda : "Google sucks, where is MY traffic" )) This forum is dead. It's interesting, that most of the guys on it are SEOs. Current admin (tedster) pretends to be SEO guru. Current owner (Boykin ?) pretends to be guru of SEO gurus. Result ---> dead forum ))
Johnny Chan
04/08/2013 02:46 pm
Yea these guys complaining about 20-30 minutes without traffic lol, try a whole year without traffic! Penguin killed us and we removed the manual penalty 5 months ago still no SERP's, WTF?? People say wait for Penguin to refresh but I think Google took us out with no chance of recovery, does anyone think recovering from Penguin is possible with the next refresh? disavow, etc.
shouldknow
04/08/2013 03:05 pm
There's definitely something going on. Our hits and rankings are OK but rankings of competition look totally messed up. Some went up, some dropped. One competitor was completely gone yesterday but came back today with lower rankings. Is it simply a new Panda interval?
Jim Christian
04/08/2013 03:13 pm
There's only one thing I love more than Google updates.... Socks right out of the dryer!
Anti-SEO
04/08/2013 03:31 pm
Cosmo Kramer ?
Josh
04/08/2013 03:33 pm
It MUST be true, now.
Jim Christian
04/08/2013 03:35 pm
No, Jim Christian... A pleasure.
Anti-SEO
04/08/2013 03:40 pm
There is no such thing as "recovering from Penguin". Penguin just devalued some of the links to your website. You lost authority. That's it. Authority can't be recovered, but it can be gained again, from scratch (and I don't mean link building by this). Nowadays it's very very complicated task. Almost impossible, if you don't have kind of the base.
josh bachynski
04/08/2013 03:50 pm
sounds like an analytics error - if rankings were truly not affected - look at your impressions and avg rank
Johnny Chan
04/08/2013 04:38 pm
So what your saying is there will be no benefit with the next Penguin refresh? Why do you say this? and how do you know? So I guess we should just give up now and move on....
jimster
04/08/2013 06:12 pm
Those guys are ridiculous. I've seen some pretty obnoxious stuff on there. "I'm seeing 40% drop in traffic from saudi arabia! Something is definitely going on!". They all measure traffic in minute intervals and freak out when something happens. Much of the country(US) started getting good weather this weekend. Sometimes that can account for a loss in traffic, but no change in rankings. We did see some crawl activity spikes on Thursday/Friday last week though, too.
Anti-SEO
04/08/2013 07:11 pm
It's very dependable, but if you were hit by Penguin and then just removed links, then no, there will be no benefit with the next Penguin refresh. I say this because I don't need to sell you "Penguin/Panda recovery package" )
NH TOOLS
04/08/2013 07:17 pm
Diddo for us, lower traffic but sales are still coming??
Sean Murray
04/08/2013 09:27 pm
I have watched a lot of competitors get tossed out of the first few pages over the last week. Something's going on.
jack
04/08/2013 11:03 pm
I noticed rankings changing this weekend. Looks like a small shift in the correct direction. I am also looking in to htttp://www.panfecta.com/ for more information
a1brandz
04/09/2013 05:28 am
As far as I remember a couple of weeks before there was a news from Google the it will not announce any more updates anywhere and they will do it internally. So, I think it could be possibly a sign of minor update.
Faizan Khan
04/09/2013 05:40 am
Have not seen any major traffic drop. Its stable. Rankings were stable but today my site is improved and traffic is 30% increased.
Joe
04/09/2013 07:52 am
with the next refresh? lol. You should have been working everyday since you got hit. I am going to be close to 100% on the 1 year anniversary. I cant wait for competitors to go down with Penguin 2.0.
Eric
04/09/2013 10:51 am
Google keeps on screaming that it wants to improve the search results for the users. Google now says the same thing about webshops. However, if we take a good look at the changes within the search result after Google's updates within the last year, it is a fact that Google puts down in ranking commercial websites aiming to achieve more turnover by AdWords sales. All the beautiful stories from Google about how to improve the search results by controlling spam, wrong links etc. are meant to hide the real intentions.
Lilacor
04/09/2013 11:58 am
It may also well be the next generation Penguin 2.0 on the way: http://tinyurl.com/d2pt2tj. Saw great SERP dance between 7-8th of April too.
Jonny Greenwood
04/09/2013 12:40 pm
I bet it's a GA error, on 28 March, I saw a 200% visits increase in GA's "overview" interface. But it remained no increase when I compared 28 March with 27 or checkd the detailed traffic sources. It only "increased" in "Overview".. And one day later, the "increase" were gone from my GA.
newyorker_1
04/09/2013 12:56 pm
I agree. Much of the threads there are pointless. So many paranoid people there praying every day for more Google traffic. And when the slightest change happens, the chatter starts about an update. Sometimes I go there for a laugh...
David
04/09/2013 01:01 pm
Also think that this is an Analytics error.How can your traffic drop, if you still have the same SERPS? Logic much.. As @twitter-205532901:disqus said, look at your avg pos and impressions in WMT..
Dips
04/09/2013 01:11 pm
If you Do SEO with natural link building then no any updates like panda or penguin affected your ranking.
sharon
04/09/2013 06:48 pm
I saw an uptick in hits 4/6, 7 and 8. Not huge but nice. Could just be my seasonal climb, but it wasn't a climb it was a jump.
Christian Lizardo Aligo
04/12/2013 12:03 am
Yeah my site is also experiencing some major traffic drop down...i thought something is wrong with my site or I've been penalized by Google..yet my Yahoo Search results standing has not changed
Gold Coaster
04/12/2013 02:29 am
Something is happening with Google Search at the moment, for sure. I have two websites about 6 months old, plenty of unique content, stable backlinks, I noticed a large increase in SERP position about mid march 2013, 200% increase search impressions, the sites jumped from page 90 to page 2 for certain keywords. Now it is mid april 2013 and the two of our websites have been dancing with Google for the past 7 days, serp positions are going up and down as the sites dance, page 2 to page 100 then back to page two. This is reflected in analytics and real time search. Still see huge fluctuations in Serp results, other larger sites also seem to be joining into the dance. I will have traffic for a few hours, then absolutely none. Weird!! I am just hoping all my hard work does comes to fruition when Google gets tired of dancing with my websites.
Mathieu Chimei
04/15/2013 01:11 pm
I've had traffic down for the last couple of weeks, but my ranking are the same from my PC. I 'm hoping people aren't on the net as much :\
Mathieu Chimei
04/16/2013 01:15 pm
Google has made a change. In the last week my traffic has dropped 25%. This does not correlate with a Panda or Penguin update and I do not have a penalty. For many articles I should be on the front page (when looking at competitors PR etc) but I have been dropped back to page 3/4 or even further. Unlike my content, most of my competitors don't even speak proper English! I have no idea what Google is thinking. Google has gone mad! If I type in a big chunk of my titles I won't even come up. Instead articles that DON'T even have those words come up in front of me! It's not even on the same topic! Google has gone completely mad
Andy Kinsey
04/17/2013 09:14 am
Looks like something was brewing, a few sites i deal with were hit by something over this weekend (14th apr-ish) ... traffic saw drops and rankings the same. something hit!
john
04/17/2013 12:30 pm
I came here after noticing an increase in my sites impressions. Up a massive 900%. Something is definitely happening!
Vikash Khetan
04/19/2013 08:42 am
For the past one week, I have been seeing a serious fluctiation in rankings, specially for KWs which are ranked in 20-40 region.
Tiina
04/26/2013 02:13 pm
Did anyone figure out what's happening? Our new site WMT attached. Huge drop on 4/13 then down from there. Any help on how to fix is greatly appreciated.
Tiina
04/26/2013 02:17 pm
attachment didn't work
Stubert
05/04/2013 06:52 pm
i have noticed something! depending on what catagorie your site is in ( by google ) organic listings go by geo location now!! For example, last week and forever before then you would have to type in "car cleaning city name" to get a local city organic listing..... NOW you just type "car cleaning" by its self and all the organic links are local targetted organic website pages!!!! This also applies to "house cleaning" etc etc. Only effecting some types of businesses. This happened on the 1st of May here in Australia on Mobile devices. It then had spread to PC's by the 2nd of May around midday. I logged into different VPS servers i have around the country and all search results were changing depending on the state and or city/suburb i was in. The changes i have seen so far is starting to try and deliver the end user a local listing of a business thats close to them, im guessing it also makes it fairer. It has completely stuffed my attack as i had 189 #1 first page listings which now dont count as its using geo location !!